ALA Honors Sen. Chafee

ALA Honors Sen. Chafee

The Braille Monitor_______

October 1997

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PHOTO/CAPTION: Senator John H. Chafee

American

Library Association Honors Senator John Chafee

From the Editor: On Monday, June

30, 1997, the American Library Association presented its Francis Joseph Campbell

Award for distinguished service to blind and physically handicapped library

patrons to Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island. This award was instituted in

1966, and Dr. Kenneth Jernigan was its second recipient. Senator Chafee was

unable to be present for the award ceremony in San Francisco, but he addressed

the ALA convention audience by videotape. This is what he said:

I am delighted to receive the American

Library Association's Francis Joseph Campbell Award, and I want to thank you

very much for it. This is a tremendous honor, and I regret that I can't be there

with you personally this evening. Standing for me to receive this wonderful

award is Barbara Weaver. She's the director of the Department of Library Services

in my home state of Rhode Island. Barbara's department has special meaning for

me because I established that department during the time that I was governor.

I know you're in good hands with Barbara.

Last year I was delighted to lead the

effort to amend the Copyright Act so that copies of published works could be

made into Braille or special recorded format for exclusive use by blind individuals

without delay--that's a key thing, without delay. Neal Kelly from the Illinois

State Libraries asked me to spend a few moments this evening describing to you

how I became interested in this matter.

It is really quite a simple story, and

it does illustrate the important role that you as constituents can play in the

legislative process. Every February, year after year, Ed Beck, a blind senior

citizen and longtime friend of mine from Rhode Island, comes to Washington for

the legislative meeting of the National Federation of the Blind. As part of

his trip he visits my office as he does the offices of other members of the

Rhode Island Congressional delegation. He always has a list of the Federation's

legislative priorities, and he spends the time with me or with my staff discussing

these priorities. In 1996 Ed had on his list the need to amend the Copyright

Act in order to reflect an agreement that had been worked out by individuals

representing the blind on one hand and the publishers on the other.

I learned from Ed and from others who

rely on recorded books that it often took the Library of Congress, National

Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, more than a year just

to get permission to begin producing recorded or Braille copies of books and

other published works. I also learned that the Library didn't pursue permission

to reproduce publications that needed the approval of a whole group of copyright

holders such as anthologies of poetry or collections of essays or short stories.

This means that, at best, blind individuals across the country didn't have access

to current publications (at least they were delayed) and, at worst, the law

was effectively censoring reading material for blind people.

Now how did this happen? As many of you

know, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

was created by an act of Congress many years ago, in 1931. At that time government

agencies and private entities were required to obtain permission from the holder

of the copyright before they could produce copies in Braille or recorded format.

Now why did this provision come about? It came about in order to protect the

rights of the copyright holder by preventing pirating and other forms of copying.

Since the enactment of the original law sixty-five years ago, there certainly

hasn't been a rash of piracy caused by Braille and specially recorded books.

So there's no need for this requirement to obtain permission from the holder

of the copyright.

No one knows better than you that we

are in the midst of an information revolution. Just in the past few years the

ways in which we find information and the amount of time in which we expect

to obtain it have changed dramatically. Yet for individuals who happen to be

blind, access to immediate information was restricted by law. That seemed to

me to be fundamentally unfair and counterproductive. Fortunately, Ambassador

Nicholas Veliotes, representing the Association of American Publishers, and

Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, a past recipient of the Francis Joseph Campbell Award,

representing the blind, were able to come to an agreement. Now this agreement

worked out a system of amending the Copyright Act and still protecting the rights

of copyright holders. They brought their proposal to Congress, and they did

this by testifying before a House committee and through able messengers like

Ed Beck as I previously mentioned.

In the end the House included the Veliotes-Jernigan

agreement in a bill that was otherwise controversial for reasons unassociated

with the Veliotes-Jernigan agreement. The Copyright Amendment pertaining to

books for the blind had not yet been introduced in the Senate. I was surprised

at that. I soon learned most of my Senate colleagues simply weren't aware of

the problem. I found an ally in a new Senator from Kansas, Sheila Frahm. Sheila

Frahm has a daughter who is blind, and she agreed to join with me in sponsoring

the proposal. We sought out other Senators who eagerly joined us as cosponsors.

For example, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, whose brother is blind, Mitch McConnell

and Wendell Ford (both from Kentucky, home of the American Printing House for

the Blind), and Larry Presler of South Dakota (a state with a surprisingly large

number of blind individuals). We decided to attach our amendment to a legislative

appropriations bill. Our amendment won unanimous approval in the Senate, was

agreed to by the conference--that is the meeting between the House and the Senate--and

was signed into law by the President on September 16, 1996, not quite a year

ago. This took just two months from the time of introduction when I introduced

it, to signing by the President. I doubt whether I will ever be able to match

that speed record again.

I'm happy to say that this was the kind

of proposal that everyone was in favor of, once they understood it. Now it's

my hope that, as a result of its enactment, information is becoming more readily

available to blind adults and children. Most of us take for granted our ability

to browse through the neighborhood library or corner book store, searching for

titles from the best seller list. For an estimated two million Americans who

are blind or visually impaired, this sort of activity is impossible. For our

nation's more than 54,000 blind elementary and secondary school students, there

has been an even greater problem, which is this: maps and charts and graphs

and illustrations that take up one page in a standard textbook require multiple

pages in Braille or tactile graphics to convey the same information. All in

all, it can take a full year to produce a Braille textbook. The added time consumed

by printers' attempting to obtain permission from the publishers or authors

made it certain that the blind student would not start school with the same

textbooks as his or her sighted classmates. It is my sincere hope that my amendment

has made a big improvement in the availability of up-to-date textbooks for students

and information and just plain good books for blind people.

Thank you again for honoring me with

this award. Francis Joseph Campbell devoted himself to improving the lives of

other blind people by giving them the skills to become self-reliant. Hopefully

my amendment is one more tool to be used in achieving this self-reliance. In

closing I want to be sure to give special thanks to Dr. Jernigan and to Kurt

Cylke, the Director of National Library Service, for nominating me for this

important award. I'm deeply grateful, and I want to thank each and every one

of you for this honor.